Our Mission
College students are already under enormous pressure, but when facing a medical crisis their dreams become secondary to their survival. The Orion Fund recognizes the importance of a college education and the daunting challenges faced by a health crisis. Our mission is to provide a safety net, so that students can recover and achieve their educational goals.
Each year The Orion Fund provides grants for uncovered medical costs, educational costs and living expenses… for the past 19 years and still counting.
Our History
We are a volunteer organization established as a legacy of Orion Trott, a U.C. San Diego student who died from cancer at the age of 21. Friends and family members gathered together in Orion’s memory, raising funds to start The Orion Fund in 2004. Our annual fundraiser is our golf tournament in Napa Valley each October.
We serve California college students age thirty-two and younger who are facing a serious health crisis. Grantees have included students suffering from cancer, Crohn’s disease, cardiovascular events and traumatic injury... car crashes to cancer. Our students go on to become parents, professionals, entrepreneurs and artists, just to name a few.
We at The Orion Fund are inspired by the courage and resilience of our grantees as they strive to continue their studies in the face of serious health challenges. Our grants not only relieve their financial burden, but let these students know we acknowledge their tremendous efforts.
Please click on our Impact Report for more about The Orion Fund.
Meet Our Board
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Pam Hirtzer, Co-Founder & President
Board Member since 2004
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Christian Charnaux, Treasurer
Board Member 2016 - 2024
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Lisa Min, Secretary
Board Member since 2019
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Julie Walsh, Medical Advisor
Board Member since 2011
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April Kenyon, Executive Director
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Florence Mou
Founding Board Member 2004
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Molly Clark
Board Member since 2009
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Kaylene Hirtzer
Board Member since 2011
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Wendy Bevier
Board member 2024
About Orion
So in June of 2003, I get a call from my son… he’s going to stay in San Diego for the summer, get a job, live with his friends. Oh, but, that’s fallen through, and by the way, Sara has lost the lease on her apartment, and they are going to share a place together for the summer. “So you two are living together? So explain to me why I’m not going to be a grandmother by the end of the year!” The explanation did not include the inoperable tumor in his brainstem three months later.
Orion was contemplating life as an upper division physics student at U.C. San Diego when he called me to say that his face was going numb. Life at the time included long hours of calculus and physics, boogie boarding down at the beach, snowboarding in the mountains, tutoring kids, and head-over-heels inseparable from his girlfriend, Sara.
He came home for radiation and chemo in October. He asked us to leave, and talked to his doctors himself. They told him that he had maybe twelve months. So he threw the biggest New Years Eve party ever, and spent time with his friends. When I asked him about it afterwards, he said, “Mom, if I look in that direction, it’s all black. So I just don’t look that way.” He then enrolled at U.C. Berkeley for the spring semester of 2004, initially in quantum mechanics. But between the tumor and the chemo, he couldn’t keep up. The physics class evolved into a short fiction writing project with the English department. Orion had been writing as long as we could remember.
He titled his story “Error”, in which the young man is injured, and it’s a brain injury. Yet he saves himself and those he loves around him. Orion took care of all of us. He was courageous and brave. He saw the world with a rare calmness and clarity, a quiet passion. I have immense respect and love for my forever 21-year old, for the way he handled those unimaginable six months of his life; the way he faced his death. He persevered, with his hope and his life and his one love, Sara, every day, every week, every month.
